Song of Guinevere and the Moon
by The Pea Pod in the Pumpkin Pie
Summary: Ginny and Luna are both born in Harry's year. Through a convoluted mess of circumstances, they end up being adopted by the Potters. How will Harry's life be different with two sisters? How will they change the storyline? (Set in the 21st century. Ginevra/Tom, Luna/Draco, Hermione/Harry.)
1. Chapter 1

"I sense there's something in the wind,

That feels like tragedy's at hand..."

\- "Sally's Song", Amy Lee

1.

"Thank you, Pandora," Molly Weasley said with feel that morning to her neighbor Pandora Lovegood, who stood in the middle of the Weasleys' chaotic living room with a cheerful smile.

'Chaotic' was a bit of an understatement. Molly Prewett had married Arthur Weasley for love, not money. She felt that, sometimes - not regret, precisely, but something like missed opportunities. She and Arthur had moved to Devon and set up shop in a stone pig-pen next to a tiny Tudor-era building out in the countryside. They had almost no money, Arthur taking a minor government job in the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts office because that was what interested him - it was like studying history or an art with no double major or minor at a Muggle university - and they had built their home from the mud up, so to speak. From the pig pen.

Today it was a four-story redbrick building with several chimneys atop it. It teetered precariously to the side, because Arthur and Molly were not exactly architects and could not have afforded one anyway, and also because they'd just kept building as they'd had more children, and the building was only held up through the blessing of magic. Farm animals still lingered about the outside of the place, mingled with old pieces of trash and wellington boots. A crooked sign out in front of the house read in messy, backwards letters: The Burrow. A barn, an overgrown, weedy garden with a pond full of green frog spawn, and a field surrounded by trees was settled out back, littered with gnome holes. The stone outhouse had just recently been converted into a broom shed.

The inside was just as chaotic as the outside. Patchwork quilts thrown over stuffed, ragged red armchairs, dirty dishes cleaning themselves in the sink and old shirts darning themselves back together on the sofa, furniture and belongings - usually secondhand - scattered haphazardly in varying states of disarray. Metal piping was clearly visible along the walls, leading into the basement, where the ghoul who had taken up residence was clanking and moaning. Five young boys, Molly and Arthur's children, stumbled around shouting in the living room - George was trying to ride his toy broomstick around the perimeter of the ceiling, Fred was chasing a shouting Bill about the living room, Percy was trying to scold everyone into being quieter, and Charlie had just brought a frog into the living room and let it loose; it exploded onto the mantel piece and something fell with a crash of breaking glass.

"Charlie! Fred! Bill! George!" Arthur called, strained. A skinny, timid man with a receding hairline and spectacles, he didn't seem to know who to yell at first.

Molly at last swelled up to twice her usual size - formidable in the first place, as she had never been a small woman and she was on her fifth pregnancy - and finally shouted, "EVERYONE BE QUIET OR THERE'S NO DESSERT TONIGHT!"

Silence fell, all five boys turning to look at her uncertainly. Molly lived with these boys twenty-four hours a day; she knew how to handle them. Calming down, she said, "Charlie, pick that up, it was a family heirloom." Her voice was tight and snappish with irritation. Charlie went over sheepishly to pick up the fallen glass.

Molly turned to Pandora anxiously. "You're sure you can handle them?" Pandora was just one woman, unused to the Weasley boys, and pregnant herself. Pandora was smiley, slim, blonde, and cheerful; none of these traits necessarily made a person ill-fit for handling several boys, but Molly distrusted them despite herself. The mischievous twins, Fred and George, were in particular watching Pandora with a canny eye.

"I'll be fine," said Pandora soothingly. "If I can handle my eccentric husband and the clutter inside my own house for years on end, I can handle your sons for one afternoon. Good luck with your medical visit."

Today was the day. The day the Weasleys found out whether they'd have a boy, or a girl. Pandora as their closest neighbor had agreed to watch their sons for the day. It helped that Pandora's family was almost as eccentric and looked down upon as the Weasleys were - Xenophilus Lovegood ran the local unbelievable rag The Quibbler, which, if it did not at least once a year espouse the belief that dead rock star Stubby Boardman wasn't really dead and that the Minister for Magic was a vampire, was not really doing its job properly. Pandora worked for the government's research division, The Department of Mysteries, which put off a lot of people as well - who knew what those people did in there.

But the Lovegoods were good people, as were the Weasleys, so neither party really minded the other.

"Thank you," Molly repeated, somewhat uselessly, and then she and Arthur turned on their heels and Apparated away. She got the usual feeling that she was being sucked down a very narrow tube, and when her feet landed on the ground again she felt a lazy kick.

"I never do trust Apparition when I'm pregnant," said Molly uncomfortably. "It always feels wrong, somehow."

"Never mind that, I'm sure the baby's fine. Come on, we can't be late," said Arthur urgently - they were perpetually late, it seemed - and they stepped through the dark, shabby pub with grimy wallpaper known as The Leaky Cauldron, past the heads of witches and wizards in robes and pointed hats and Victorian era dress, through the haze of smoke, across the sea of chatter, and out into the London streets.

Crowds bustled, cars honked. They made their way with quick footsteps toward St Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries; passing Muggles gave their shabby robes odd looks. At last, they arrived outside a condemned redbrick department store called Purge and Dowse, Ltd.

A female dummy stood in the darkened department store window, its fake eyelashes drooping, its slinky dress green nylon. Arthur leaned toward the dummy. "We're here to see Healer Jenkins about our unborn child," he breathed.

The dummy came to life, nodding and beckoning with a finger. None of the passing Muggles seemed to pay any notice as Arthur and Molly stepped up and melted through the glass, passing through a mirage of cold water but finding it only an illusion once they'd stepped out and into the hospital.

They were in a crowded reception area. There was a secretary at a desk and lots of rows of roughly hewn wooden chairs. Healers in lime green robes decorated with the crossed wand and bone symbol were going down the rows, talking to individual patients, taking notes on clipboards, speaking in cool, soothing voices. Molly watched a nearby man with a furry green claw coming out of the top of his head trying to explain to his Healer what was going on, but he seemed charmed only to be able to speak in Gobbledegook, the native language of goblins.

Arthur walked up to the desk labeled "Enquiries" behind which there were several general health posters labeled with reminders about antidotes and cauldron health along with a moving portrait of famous Healer and Hogwarts Headmistress Dilys Derwent.

The secretary was a scowling, heavily jowled woman with a bun of dark hair who nonetheless directed them to "Floor two, magical bugs. I know pregnancy is not a magical illness," she added with a sigh. "We get that a lot. But pregnancy goes alongside more common illnesses and -"

"We know. We've been here a few times," said Arthur kindly.

"Well then what are you doing standing around here for?" the receptionist barked. "Get to it!"

They moved through the double doors, along a narrow corridor. Moving portraits on the walls of famous Healers shuffled about in the flickering firelight from hundreds of crystal bubbles floating around the ceiling containing candles, the only source of lighting. Healers in lime-green robe uniforms passed down the wood paneled, purple carpeted hallways quietly.

They passed by the Artifact Accidents ward, one room of which contained a moaning woman covered in angry red boils from a cauldron explosion, and climbed the stairs to floor two, past the sectioned off "Dragon Pox" ward and straight through the office door labeled "Llimilynn Jenkins."

They sat down uneasily in chairs to wait, looking over the moving photographs of his family Healer Jenkins had hung on his office walls.

"Who names their son Llimilynn?" Arthur wondered quietly to himself in utter bewilderment. He'd have scolded his sons for voicing the same question, but privately he thought it was a good one. Molly had other things on her mind.

"What if it's another boy?" she whispered at last.

Arthur looked over at her. "I know you've wanted a girl. It's why we keep trying. You've always wanted a girl. But Molly." He grabbed her hand. "If it's not a daughter, we can try again."

"For a seventh time?!" Molly hissed, whispering. Arthur was trying to comfort her, she knew - he comforted her over her desires for a daughter in the same way he comforted her over her self consciousness concerning her weight - but her nerves had been wracked over the coals by now and she had horrible heartburn radiating down to her kneecaps.

"Mollycoddles -"

At last, Healer Jenkins, a thin middle-aged dark-haired man, came in quietly and sat down across from them. Molly and Arthur broke apart, their hands separating once more - they'd made an unknowing reach for each other. "So," he said, "you want a standard check-up, to make sure all is well and to know the sex of the baby?"

"Th-that's right." Molly's voice shook, but she brought up all her courage, nodding. Arthur silently took her hand again.

"Very well." Healer Jenkins knelt down before Molly's swelling pregnant belly. He took out his wand and waved it over her abdomen, and a wide black circle appeared before him, a mirage, with a clear image of the fetus inside.

Molly gasped in delight. "Oh, look, there she is!" Arthur smiled. It never stopped being exciting, no matter how many times it happened. Then Molly bent closer, squinting.

"There are... two of them?"

"Yes. Twins again, it seems, Mrs Weasley," said Healer Jenkins in good-natured amusement.

"Both boys?" she asked dreadingly.

Healer Jenkins looked closer, a little red dot appearing briefly at the end of his wand. The dot flashed green, then blue.

"One of each," he said, sitting back in surprise. "A girl and a boy. Due March the first."

Molly brightened in ecstasy, a great balloon swelling within her. "I'm going to have a daughter," she breathed. Arthur rubbed her hand warmly, happy, but also happier for his wife.

Inside Molly, the forgotten boy kicked again.

They went home to their children that night and found, to their surprise, that all five boys were sound asleep in the living room. "I fed them hot cocoa and biscuits." Pandora smiled secretly. "I hope you don't mind. It was absolute pandemonium for a time and then they all went right to sleep!" she added brightly.

Molly was unable to contain herself. "I'm having a daughter," she said, proudly and secretively, leaning forward.

Pandora gasped in delight. "Oh, that's wonderful! I'll have to tell Xeno! I'm having a baby girl as well. Perhaps they'll be friends..."

The two women gazed down at their bellies.

"Perhaps something good will come out of all this nasty war business," Pandora whispered.

* * *

The ecstasy of the Weasley couple over having a daughter didn't last very long.

Molly used nap-time three days later to sit at her desk in the Burrow's living room and look over the numbers on their bank account statements from Gringotts. She was trying to figure it out - she always had before. She was trying to figure out how they could work in two extra mouths to feed.

"We'll manage," she'd always said. "We'll manage."

But it had been a bad year - and Molly came to a chilling realization. They might be able to afford one child.

But they could not afford two.

She dreaded telling Arthur, dreaded it like nothing she'd ever told him before. She was distracted all day - fixing lunch in the wrong order, forgetting to do things, letting her children run amok. A baby. They'd have to give up a baby.

After the children had gone to bed, she sat down with Arthur tearfully and she gave him the news. "My son - I'm going to have give up my son -" she sobbed into her handkerchief, rocking back and forth in her seat.

"So you automatically assume it's going to be the boy?" asked Arthur sharply.

Molly looked up. "I'm not giving up my daughter," she said darkly.

"We did all this so you could have a daughter and now I'm going to have to give up one of my sons!" Arthur barked, shooting to his feet.

"Oh, don't you act like this is my fault!" Molly had stood too, never one to back down from a fight.

"Oh, it's because I'm poor, then, is it?" Arthur snapped.

"Arthur, I have always put up with all of your eccentricities, your meager job, your fascination with Muggles -"

"Yes, and do you how many children I wanted?! Two!" Arthur snapped. "I wanted a tiny house in the country, a little government job, and two children!"

Molly's lip trembled - she sat down and started crying again. The anger faded from Arthur's brow; he put an arm around her and rubbed her shoulder. "Molly, we'll figure it out. We always have before," he said soothingly.

"No. Not this time," said Molly clearly, looking up at last. "With two more newborn children, we won't even have enough money to feed everyone. We won't have enough money for food, Arthur. And if we give up the girl we wanted - the girl I wanted - after all this, then what was the point of any of it?"

"The point -? Molly, we have many wonderful sons," said Arthur, annoyed. "That's the point." They stared at each other for a moment.

At last, Arthur sat down, taking off his glasses and rubbing his face, looking - as he always did - tired. "So what do we do?" he said in an old voice, face in his hand. It was terrible to see him that way. "Adoption?"

"That's what I was thinking," said Molly tentatively, watching her husband, torn. "That we could explore that option, that... angle. Maybe he could go to a good home," she said, watery, and her eyes stung again.

* * *

The Potters had the news, in the middle of their son's pregnancy, that they could not have any more children.

"It's a minor magical infection common only in a small number of witches," the Healer had admitted frankly at their cottage. "But it renders the ovaries infertile. Your current child is fine," he said, when they looked alarmed. "He's growing safely inside the uterus. It's the... ovaries that are the problem." He cleared his throat with a sound like chalk snapping, visibly resisting the urge to smooth his thin mustache.

Lily just sat there, hand over her mouth, for a long time. She felt like she'd been physically struck. She was completely floored.

"We have a son," said James soothingly, putting his hand over hers. "A healthy son."

"A marked son," said Lily abruptly. "And no daughter. I wanted a daughter."

James had sat there, silent, for a long time. James Potter had grown up a rich old blueblood wizarding family, and he had grown up comforted by the idea that with his resourceful mind and his riches, he could get his future bride anything she ever wanted. So how to get around this?

It only came to him hours after the Healer had left. "Adoption," he said suddenly, brightening. "We could adopt from another wizarding family. We could settle on a currently unborn child, a sister for Harry."

Lily looked up tentatively. "Do you... do you think it would work?" she asked uncertainly. Lily Potter had always been much more insecure than most people realized.

"Lily, think about it," said James, brightening, warming to the idea. He came forward and took her hands. "Can't you see how ideal we look?"

It was true that in many respects they were lucky. They were fabulously wealthy, as was their potential children's godfather Sirius Black. They were an attractive young couple, Lily slim and pretty and crimson-haired with brilliant green eyes and a talent for Healing and Charmwork, James tall and trim with messy devil-may-care black hair and a talent for sports. They were currently hiding from the war in a tiny little village called Godric's Hollow, in a two-story stone cottage faced with ivy, quaint and peaceful; there was a local Church just down the street, in the village square, and the cottage itself was covered in elegant furniture and soft carpets.

And they would have a son this potential girl's age.

"We would be putting her in terrible danger," Lily whispered, somber. "I've said it before. Our son is marked. That's why we're in hiding."

James sobered for a moment. "... We can't let that bastard stop us from living our lives," he said at last. He meant Lord Voldemort. "You know how stuck he is on Pureblood policies, anyway. Our son is a Halfblood; he won't go for us. And even if he does, our friends would never betray us." James's tone was dismissive. "Do you want to do this or not?"

He looked her in the eye over the top of his glasses, hazel eyes piercing.

"... Yes," Lily whispered. "Let's try it."

So they began looking for children. They were trying to take in a currently unborn baby girl, someone who would be Harry's age - they hoped to heroically rescue some wizarding girl from horrible circumstances.

The first file they ever seriously considered, however, was the Weasleys'.

"Nobody else is going to take them seriously," said James intently. "But I say - fuck all the rest of them. There's nothing wrong with being interested in Muggles, and the Weasleys always seemed like good people. And they're an ancient wizarding family - not a problem for the Potters."

"They're probably giving the child up for money reasons, which I can sympathize with," Lily admitted. "My Muggle family grew up poor as well. And everything you just said is true. But -"

"But what?"

"They're having twins," said Lily softly. "And they're not giving up the daughter. They're giving up the son."

James stared down at the fine print, purposefully stuffed way down at the bottom, torn for a moment. "Well... maybe we can get them to reconsider," he said. "They're ideal otherwise. There's no harm in asking, right?"

* * *

The adoption agent sat down with the Weasleys in their kitchen a few days later.

"The Potter family wishes to take your child -" she began somberly, a brunette woman in very square-shouldered official brown robes.

Arthur let out a deep breath and Molly let out a squeal of triumph. The stigma against their family was deep, and it was the first offer they'd gotten. "That's perfect!" said Molly. "They're good people, a brilliant family -!"

"There is just one caveat."

"Anything!"

The adoption agent winced. "They don't want your son," she said. "They want your daughter."

The Weasleys paused. Anger slowly took over Molly's face. "Well they can't have her!" she said hotly. "Ginny is not up for debate! I'm offering my son; isn't that enough?!"

"They don't want your son. They want a girl," the agent admitted. "Potential parents can be picky like that. And let's just put it this way - the Potters have enough money to be very picky."

The Weasleys were overwhelmed by the enormity of this statement for a moment. They had a single bank account and currently it had a tiny pile of silver Sickles inside it. Molly could practically picture the vault in her mind.

"The children's godfather would be quite wealthy as well - Sirius Black, a fighter for the Order of the Phoenix," the agent continued, horribly clinically in Molly's opinion. "So this couple holds a lot of weight and power - and they are going to give birth to a son who would be your daughter's age. Frankly, it's a brilliant match," she said matter of factly.

Molly opened her mouth to shout; Arthur held up a hand to hold her back. "What are our options?" he asked intently.

"No other offers currently on the table," the agent said simply. They stared at her for a moment - and realized that really was what it amounted to.

Arthur sat back against the weight of it all. "... Molly, we have to consider this," he said at last, quietly.

"... No," said Molly. "No. Not after all this. I'm not giving up my daughter!" She grew angry again. "Absolutely not!" She stormed out of the room, slamming the kitchen door behind her.

Her sons stared at her, uncomprehending but round-eyed with worry, as she heaved herself into an armchair. "Mummy, what's wrong?" said Bill in a tiny voice, the eldest and the only one brave enough to speak, while a tearful and clingy Percy wrapped his arms around Molly's leg.

"Everything is fine!" Molly barked, though it was obvious this was a lie. "Nothing is wrong!"

She looked out the window, and tried to stop thinking about what obviously wasn't an option for her children.

She was unsuccessful.

* * *

The Weasleys were silent on the matter for so long that the Potters began looking for other options, afraid they'd missed their slot.

Then, unexpectedly, the reply came back.

"They'll take you up on your offer," said the Potters' agent; he looked almost as surprised as they were. "On March first, the day of her birth, you get their female twin - full name Ginevra Potter, but they're calling her Ginny."

"Oh, I think I like Ginevra better," said Lily warmly. "What a beautiful name."

James smiled in triumph. "We'll take her!" he said, and grabbed Lily's hand. "See?" he said warmly, beaming. "Everything worked out for the best. Oi!" He leaned down to Lily's belly level. "D'you hear that, Harry?! You're going to have a sister!"

Lily began laughing.

* * *

Pandora Lovegood lay dying in her bedroom at Lovegood House, just miles away from The Burrow.

Lovegood House was a black cylindrical castle high atop a hill, surrounded by a stream. Pandora had picked the house specifically for her daughter. "I want Luna to grow up in her own castle," Pandora had said fantastically, waving her hands across the great expanse of the property. "And look! It looks just like a massive chess piece!" She'd smiled whimsically, always having a fascination with the fantastic even by a witch's standards.

A broken down gate led up a steep path lined with all variety of strange and fantastical magical plants, all stopping at a thick black metal door studded with iron nails. Go inside, and the walls were painted bright colors with birds and plants; a spiraling wrought iron staircase led to the second floor; a labyrinth of books, papers, statues, and models covered every surface. Some of the models moved and flew about, which did not help the dizzying aura of Lovegood House at all. It was filled with the soft whisper of various sheets of parchment, even when no one inhabited it.

It was eccentric. But Pandora and Xenophilus had always been happy there.

Xenophilus stood outside their bedroom door now on the night of February the thirteenth, whispering with the Healer.

"She's sick from the birth, and the Healing for this particular complication has to be done from the inside," said the Healer sympathetically, a curly-haired young woman.

"Well - well she can do that, she's a witch!" exclaimed Xenophilus, a slightly cross-eyed man with long tangled strings of pale hair who everyone said had married way out of his league.

The Healer shook her head sadly. "Your wife won't Heal herself," she said. "She won't say why."

Xenophilus entered the room in a numb kind of shock. Pandora had lit up his dank, parchment and ink laden world, had become the center of his universe. And now she was pale and prone lying in her bed.

"... It has something to do with a side effect of your current job, doesn't it?" he asked at last. Xenophilus Lovegood may have been eccentric, but he wasn't stupid.

Pandora managed a smile. "We should have waited another year," she croaked. "I could have healed myself then."

"The experiment would have been over," Xenophilus realized. An unfamiliar feeling built and built inside him, and only when he whirled around and shot sparks from the end of his wand across the room did he realize that feeling was anger. "Damnit!"

"Promise me... you'll look after Luna..."

Xenophilus whirled around to find his wife gone, her eyes staring blank and glassy up at the ceiling, blonde hair damp around her.

In another room, a baby girl wailed.

* * *

The Potters - Lily herself still pregnant - were ecstatic when they first held the baby girl in their arms. It was the evening of March the first; Ginevra had just been born a few hours ago.

"Hello, little Ginevra," Lily cooed in delight, taking the bundle of blankets and bouncing it gently. "What a beautiful name you have."

"Ginevra Potter," said Sirius, a handsome dark-haired young man with liquid black eyes. He was leaning against the wall casually, his arms crossed. "That's what the birth certificate says. It fits."

"How does it feel being the father and the godfather of a baby girl?" Lily asked them teasingly, smiling, her green eyes glinting.

"I'm totally unprepared," James and Sirius said, deadpan, as one, and everyone in the room laughed.

Several hundred miles away, Arthur was cradling a crying Molly in his arms in their home. They were hunched over their sixth and final child - their son Ron.

Gone or not, their daughter would never stop being "Ginny" to them.

* * *

Molly had gone to visit Xenophilus frequently after the death of his wife - it distracted her from her enormous loss - and that was how she knew something was wrong.

She walked into the house one afternoon to find it in worse disarray than usual.

"Xeno!" she called, looking around at the papers and books scattered everywhere, as if some great force had smashed into them. She could hear baby Luna wailing away in another part of the house.

She wandered up the spiraling staircase, looking for Luna - Xeno - anyone, in the vast, dark and empty silence. It was very dark. No lights on anywhere.

She entered Xeno's office and he suddenly came upon her, seizing her by the shoulders. Xeno was thinner than he had been, his eyes wide and bloodshot, dark-rimmed with lack of sleep.

"Pandora!" he spat. "She spoke to me! I have to - I have to displace everything in the house! She can't come back until then!"

"Xeno - Xeno, where is she?" said Molly, still holding her basket of goods, fearful but attempting to hold onto a still tone of voice.

"There! Don't you see her?" Xeno pointed. Molly looked - searching for a ghost, spirit, apparition, anything.

She saw no one there.

"Yes, Xeno, I see," said Molly calmly. "Why don't I take Luna out for a while as you go finish up?"

She pried herself from Xeno's grasp, and he went back to muttering to himself, throwing books and papers all over the floor.

Molly found Luna wailing away, very sick, in a several-days-old diaper. She looked even tinier than she had the last time Molly had seen her. Had Xeno been able to look after the girl at all?

Perhaps not. Perhaps Luna reminded him too much... of the loss of Pandora.

Molly took up Luna and resolved to call child protective services. She took Luna away from Lovegood House and never looked back.

* * *

The Potters got a surprise letter from the adoptive family - the Weasleys.

Dear Mr and Mrs Potter,

We realize we promised not to have any contact, but we are desperate for help. You must listen to us. Our friend, Xenophilus Lovegood, has recently been declared unfit to care for his child after the death in childbirth of his wife Pandora. He has gone, at least temporarily, insane.

Baby Luna - can she go with you? We don't know what will happen to her otherwise. She has nowhere else to go. She's a wonderful little girl.

Please consider the possibility of adopting her as well.

Sincerely,

Molly and Arthur Weasley

Lily could imagine how painful this must have been, could picture the couple hunched over a desk, arguing on what to write.

"Xeno - doesn't he run that rag The Quibbler?" said James skeptically. "And - adopting a second daughter? That would bring us to three children."

"But we have the money for that," said Lily suddenly, turning around. "This little girl needs our help. That's why the Weasleys contacted us. We're good people, we're wealthy, and we already have Ginevra.

"Doesn't baby Luna at least deserve a look?"

* * *

Baby Luna was set on the cottage living room floor beside the heavily pregnant Lily, next to the swaddled Ginevra. Luna was one month older, but Ginevra had already been with the Potters longer.

Lily cooed over the children, offering them toys, and as James had predicted, she quickly fell in love.

"Yes, this would be excellent!" she said enthusiastically, her previous qualms forgotten.

James sighed, bending over baby Luna, looking down into her face - baby Luna, so tiny and pale, offered a sweet, gummy smile and grabbed his finger. A slow smile grew over James's face.

"Ah, what the hell," he said warmly, knowing he was a sucker. "I always liked the idea of having a houseful of kids anyway."

The Potters looked up at the adoption agent and nodded firmly, smiling. "We'll take her."

* * *

Luna and Ginevra lay sprawled as infants on the runic circle inside the cottage.

"A vial from each parent, for each daughter," said the Wiccan priest in symboled blue robes evenly - he was a very old, frail looking man, but he did his job well. A vial of Lily's blood and a vial of James's blood was injected into each girl's arm, and they started wailing away.

The priest waved his wand and the circle glowed gold. In a warm rush of magic, Luna and Ginevra were true Potters at last.

"I now pronounce you Luna Potter and Ginevra Potter," said the priest in a small, shaky voice, "child of James and Lily. Godchild of Sirius Black."

And so on the day Harry Potter was born, two baby girls were already there to meet him.

"Harry," said a breathless Lily, smiling, showing Harry the twin cradles from above, he tucked away safely in her arms, "meet your sisters. This is Luna and Ginevra."

Luna, Ginevra, and Harry Potter all locked eyes for the first time.

* * *

Peter Pettigrew crouched, timid, at the feet of Lord Voldemort in the darkened room.

"Th - the Potters' son has been born," he murmured in a fearful, trembling voice. "Sirius made his godfather. But... but the Potters have also adopted two infant girls. Their son Harry's age. Ginevra and Luna. They were made Potters in a blood ritual. Sirius... Sirius has been named their godfather as well."

Lord Voldemort had paused in something like momentary surprise.

"It matters not," he said at last, dismissively, in his unnaturally high, eerie, hissing voice. It issued out from underneath the hood of his black cloak. Peter Pettigrew shuddered and Lord Voldemort noticed, though with a cruel smile, he said nothing. "I will kill the boy's parents. Then the boy. Then his sisters.

"All the Potters have done is doom two infant girls. Quite tragic, really," he said thoughtfully, amused.

But not even he had any idea what was coming.


	2. Chapter 2

2.

On Halloween night, the most powerfully magical day of the year, the wind and rain howled about the windows, slanting sideways. It was pitch black, but there was a circle of warm firelight from the fireplace inside Potter Cottage. Lily and James were in elegant robes, the children in brilliantly gold-embroidered nightgowns.

The Potters had celebrated Samhain in at least a somewhat traditional way, trying to maintain rituals even though they were in hiding. They'd prepared a feast, made offerings to an ancestors altar, used tarot to look into the coming year, and prepared a cauldron over the fire into which they had placed wishes for the new year and habits they wanted to undo. James and Lily had lifted their children over the bubbling cauldron, letting them drop the wishes in; the children had watched in fascination as the potion hissed and turned briefly blue.

But it was late at night now, and time for bed. James occupied the children with magic tricks from his wand; they watched in fascination from the living room floor as Lily cleaned up the kitchen further within the depths of the house.

Then Lily came out into the living room. "Bedtime," she said, and she picked up two children while James picked up the third. His hands were busy and he didn't have time to throw down his wand as he usually would.

Lord Voldemort crept through the front gate, took out his wand, and blasted the door off its hinges.

James realized all at once what was going on, but one of his arms was full with a child. "Shit!" he spat, and set the child behind him, standing in front of Luna and taking out his wand. Lily had time to run in and grab for her wand, and she joined James to face Voldemort. Their children were huddled behind them.

"Children," said Lily in an unsteady voice, "stay there."

Lord Voldemort let out a high, unnatural, bone-chilling laugh. "Two against me," he said dryly. "That's almost fair."

Then he started blasting curses at them.

Lily and James's wands flew outward and they went to work. James transfigured objects to guard their way while Lily animated the furniture into doing her bidding, having it attack Voldemort. Voldemort disappeared - and Apparated behind them, right in front of the children.

Lily Apparated as fast as she could and just got there in time, guarding her children with her body - and taking the green light of the Killing Curse instead. Her eyes and mouth widened in momentary surprise, and then she fell over dead.

"Lily!" James shouted. The children were screaming.

James began furiously shooting curses at Voldemort - they Apparated and Apparated around each other, curses flying - then Voldemort shot a Killing Curse underneath James's raised arm at the children, and he didn't have time to put up any sort of magical blockade. He ducked in front of them, taking the attack instead and falling atop his wife at the children's feet.

The children were still screaming. The crash of falling furniture and curses, the violence to their parent's deaths, had frightened them. Lord Voldemort loomed over them in his black robes and cloak. His hood had fallen and as he trapped them in a corner, and they turned to look up at him, they could see his face: thin, bone white, and skeletal, the cheekbones in sharp relief, the scalp completely bald, the eyes crimson slits like bloody snake eyes.

Luna and Ginevra were crying. Harry, however, had fallen silent. He stood in front of his sisters, staring into Voldemort's face very fiercely.

"Idiot boy," said Lord Voldemort softly to Harry. "It's you I wanted all along."

He lifted his wand, pointed it at Harry's forehead, and fired off the Killing Curse. The girls would be killed - it would be most prudent to kill them all - but the boy had to come first. The boy was the main threat, and Voldemort had to see that destroyed.

All three children saw the green light fill their vision - and then abruptly they were all bathed in a glow of white light. Their parents' protection. Having died shielding their children from Voldemort, Voldemort now could not touch their children.

The green light bounced off of Harry's forehead - leaving a lightning bolt scar - and hit Voldemort instead. Familial love protection. Being without love himself, it was the one thing Voldemort hadn't counted on.

He felt horrible pain fill him, and as his body disintegrated in a great fiery explosion, his loose soul flitted, ran, away. But it had fractured, unbeknownst even to Voldemort himself. That fractured piece of soul floated around the room, until it entered the only thing it could - the open wound on the forehead of Harry Potter.

Voldemort realized in that moment what had happened - familial love protection. It seemed obvious now, painfully so, in the wake of his defeat.

His soul hiding there all those years, deep in the dark forests of Albania, living temporarily through the bodies of animals, he reflected. Those girls were also part of the Potters' blood protection, and had become in their defiance and destruction of him just as dangerous as the boy.

He resolved that if he ever gained a body back, he would go after all three of them. If only to make a statement. That some lucky young girls with loving parents could not best him.

Unbeknownst to him, the most ironic part of it all was when he thought of the girls as "lucky."

* * *

The door slammed off its hinges, the group of Death Eaters led by Bellatrix Lestrange - Voldemort's beautiful and highly insane dark-haired right hand woman - standing in the doorway of the Longbottoms' hideout. It was a darkened trailer in the middle of a large city.

Bellatrix, a Pureblood herself and a believer in Pureblood ideology, knew of course her master would have gone for the Pureblood boy. The Longbottoms should know where the Dark Lord had disappeared to.

"We're home!" she cried, beaming and throwing out her arms, and the Death Eaters behind her chuckled. "Come out, come out, wherever you are..." she cooed gleefully, the large group of Death Eaters stalking cautiously into the darkened hideout. A teakettle sat hissing on the stove.

Then suddenly a curse flew at Bellatrix from the side; she blocked just in time. "Ooh, that wasn't bad!" She smirked. "As to be expected from Frank and Alice Longbottom, the great Aurors." Heavy sarcasm laced her voice.

The Longbottoms stood there, hard as iron, in the doorway. Bellatrix could see their infant son in the room behind them.

"Yes," she told the waiting Death Eaters. "That's them."

Then all five attacked the two Aurors at once. Five Dark fighters against two Aurors - Frank and Alice never stood a chance. "We need them alive!" Bellatrix shrieked periodically as she fought, and when Frank and Alice were bound at her feet, she pointed her wand at them and hissed, "Where is the Dark Lord?"

"We - we don't know, we don't know -"

"Answer me!"

"We don't know!" Alice Longbottom wailed, at last losing her head.

In another room, the Portkey touching their son activated. He was sucked away to his grandmother's house with a minute pop.

Bellatrix smirked, looking down at them all. "So you're going to be that way, are you? Very well then... Crucio!"

Frank and Alice Longbottom screamed and writhed as the blue light tore into their bodies.

"WHERE IS THE DARK LORD?!" Bellatrix screamed.

The most tragic part was that it was no use. Voldemort had not chosen to target the Longbottoms after all, and they had no idea where he was.

* * *

Rubeus Hagrid, a giant of a man, slammed into the burning wreckage of the house, tearing down the door, wrapped against the smoke and soot in his leather coat. He stamped through the magical flames currently burning down the wreckage that was once Potter Cottage.

Dumbledore had intimated he had to make this fast. Death Eaters would be after these children.

It was easy to find them. Three children stood among the flames tearing up the walls, surrounded by a halo of white light, completely unharmed. The flames, as an extension of Voldemort himself, could not touch them. They stood there and stared at Hagrid solemnly, almost eerily, the two girls behind and on either side of the boy with the bleeding forehead.

Hagrid had passed by the corpses of Lily and James, though he had not emotionally processed this part yet. It was no use. The children were orphans.

He stormed over to them, grabbed them up, wrapped them in the gigantic leather coat, and ran out of the house, storming through fallen pieces of wood until at last he made it to the outside and the clear night air, coughing.

He looked down at the children. The glowing light had faded; the cut on Harry Potter's forehead had dried, leaving only a scar.

Hagrid held them for a while, staring at the cottage until the flames at last had burned themselves out.

The rumble of a motorcycle came from the sky and Sirius Black landed in front of the ruins of Potter Cottage, leaping off the motorcycle. "... No," he said. "No. No!" He ran forward - stumbled to a halt - fell to his knees looking stunned. The village was quiet, the stars clear in the night sky.

"It's - it's no use, Sirius, I - I saw 'em," said Hagrid tearfully, placing a hand on Sirius's shoulder. "The murderer's gone. The children somehow managed to block his final attack and turn it back on him. Harry's got the scar ter prove it. But... they put up a good fight, but... Lily an' James're gone." Hagrid cleared his throat, blinking heavily, looking up at the stars.

"... I should have been there," Sirius whispered.

"Sirius... there's nothing ya could've done," said Hagrid. "Not against him. Frankly, I don't know how these children managed it. You'd just have died too."

"The children..." Sirius suddenly shot to his feet, looking at Hagrid. "Hagrid, I - I need them. I was meant to raise them. They're my godchildren."

Hagrid shook his head. "Dumbledore wants ter take 'em ter their aunt and uncle. Thinks it'd be better if they were - y'know, if they were raised by family."

Sirius nodded, looking down, his face shadowed. Then he looked back up, angry determination in his expression.

"Very well, then," he said. "I have something else to do. You can borrow my motorbike to take the children to their aunt and uncle, Hagrid.

"Where I'm going, I won't be needing it."

* * *

Hagrid landed in front of the Muggle home of Lily's sister Petunia and her husband and son - at number four, Privet Drive, Surrey - with the children in his arms, to find McGonagall and Dumbledore already there in the silent black suburban street. Even the street lamps had magically gone out.

"Hagrid. At last," said Dumbledore. "And where did you get that motorcycle?"

"Borrowed it, Professor Dumbledore, sir," said Hagrid, climbing off of the motorcycle as he spoke. "Young Sirius Black lent it to me. I've got 'em, sir."

"No problems, were there?"

"No, sir. Little tykes fell asleep just as we was flyin' over Bristol."

Dumbledore and McGonagall bent forward over the bundles of blankets swathed in Hagrid's huge arms - into the faces of the sleeping children they were about to leave on the doorstep of the children's aunt, Petunia Dursley.

Dumbledore knew it had to be this way. As all three children had been protected at once, the only way for blood protection to extend to their entire place of residence was if they lived with Potter or Evans family - and the Dursleys were their only living relatives.

Dumbledore had the suspicious feeling they had not seen the last of Lord Voldemort.

Petunia Dursley opened her front door to put out the milk bottles the next cold November morning, looked down at the doorstep, and shrieked, waking the children into wails that in turn charged up the wails of her own infant son Dudley and sent her husband Vernon thundering down the stairs in one of his boring corporate ties to see "what the bloody hell was going on."

Three children were swaddled there, a letter tucked inside the scarred boy's blankets.

* * *

"Peter!"

Peter Pettigrew, already on the run, whirled around and paled to see Sirius Black standing there. He had been found. And Peter was a feeble little man; Sirius was a better duelist than he was.

There was only one way to get out of this unscathed. He put his hands behind his back, Sirius's wand still pointed into his face.

"How could you do it, Sirius?" said Peter, feigning tearfulness. "How could you?"

Then he chopped off one of his fingers as evidence and, with his wand behind his back, blew up the entire Muggle city street around him. An unregistered Animagus, he himself escaped as a rat and scampered into the sewers, bloody and in pain.

Sirius stood there, momentarily stunned. All the Muggles around him were unconscious; entrails littered the street, as some had been blown into smithereens.

His former best friend had just escaped and framed him for thirteen murders - as well as treason against the Potters.

Sirius Black was still laughing in a sad, hysterical way, unmoving, when the wizarding authorities came to arrest him.

The wreckage was explained to Muggles as a gas explosion.

Meanwhile, hundreds of miles away, the Longbottoms were still being tortured. Not that it was of any use. By that point, they were vegetables.

* * *

Several Months Later

Dumbledore was looking over the moving pictures in The Daily Prophet - End of War Continues! Bellatrix Lestrange and Cronies Rounded Up! - when his office door at Hogwarts slammed open.

Molly and Arthur Weasley and Xenophilus Lovegood stormed inside, past the countless whirring silver instruments, the black cabinets, the gold perch of Fawkes the phoenix, the moving portraits along the walls.

"Ah, Xenophilus," said Dumbledore cheerfully to the unusually thin man. "Out of the hospital, I see. How are you?"

Xeno flinched, but rallied. "I want my daughter back," he said boldly, lifting his chin.

"So do we!" Molly snapped. "We demand Ginny back!"

Dumbledore sobered; in that moment, his long silver beard and grandfather spectacles seemed all too appropriate. "I'm afraid that's not possible," he said in a deep tone of voice, putting down the newspaper.

"Just because you don't want to give up -!" Molly began hotly.

"No, you don't understand," said Dumbledore, pained. "Your biological daughters were made Potters in a Wiccan blood ritual. I'm sure you can understand how heavy that is."

A stunned, heavy silence filled the office.

"That aside," said Dumbledore, steepling his long fingers before himself, "legally they already have their own trust funds connected to the main Potter vault inside Gringotts. They've been named Potters in legal documents. We cannot just give you back your biological children or open the adoptions back up because something tragic has happened.

"Those girls are being raised alongside their brother and their cousin by Lily's sister and her husband, and that is where they must stay."

"I just... After everything that's happened... I just wanted my daughter back..." Molly whispered.

"I can understand," said Dumbledore quietly. "But you must also understand why I cannot allow it."

"Damnit!" Xeno pounded the desk with a fist. "Isn't there anything you can do?!"

Arthur was silent, stricken.

"... I am afraid not," said Dumbledore quietly. Just in case, he decided privately in that moment that no one in the wizarding world could ever know where the Potters lived. Just in case.

Dumbledore had his own reasons. He had already deduced that part of the prophecy - of the Chosen One, Harry Potter, having "a power the Dark Lord knew not" - may very well refer to Harry Potter's two sisters. Either way, now they would certainly be Voldemort's targets.

The fate of the wizarding world may very well rest on the shoulders of two little girls and their brother.

* * *

Hundreds of miles away, Ginevra, Luna, and Harry played on the Dursleys' living room rug next to their cousin Dudley - who had been forbidden from harming them, as he had sisters - completely unconscious of what was going on around them.

* * *

 _Author's Notes:_ The Potters will not have a perfect, happy childhood, but because of the presence of girls it will be significantly more complex than canon Harry's. Remember, the Dursleys are great believers in traditional gender roles.


End file.
